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Sign System of the Chansonnier Saint-Germain-Des-Prés 1 The “Pre-Modal” Sign System of the Chansonnier Saint-Germain-des-Prés 1 The “Premodal” Sign System of the Chansonnier de [19] Saint-Germain-des-Prés by ROBERT LUG trans. Rob C. Wegman 1 “Quidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem” In the course of my work on the neume repertoire of the Chansonnier de Saint- Germain-des-Prés I discovered the key to a logical and consistent sign system, which allows us to interpret the tunes – supposedly notated without rhythm – with greater precision than was possible up to now. There are several indications that the principles of this system may constitute the general basis of all monodic notation in the thirteenth century. The principles may prove to be significant also for our understanding of Notre Dame polyphony, perhaps even of the St Martial repertoire; more on this at the end of this article. In what follows I wish to report on my research, which was limited, in the first instance, to the analysis of the signs in a single codex. The Chansonnier de Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Paris, BN fr. 20050)2 is the oldest surviving vernacular song book that contains musical notation; contrary to all the later trouvère/troubadour manuscripts, its melodies are not written in square notation, but in Lorraine neumes (Fig. 1). The codex was copied in the area around Metz; its older section with musical notation3 was written already around 1235 (plus or minus five years), that is, at a time when the art of the trouvères was still flourishing. We are dealing with a compilation of songs that were actually still current at the time, classics as well as [21] brand new pieces, not with a retrospectively created collection from the late phase of courtly song (Minnesang).4 The impulse behind my research came from questions about musical practice. When we aim to recover the sounding reality of the songs, as well known, we are immediately confronted with the cardinal question of rhythm. Generations of scholars have again and again proposed new solutions to the problem of Taktrhythmik; in the nineteenth century these solutions involved – in roughly chronological order – arbitrary, mensuralistic, declamatory, and binary models, and then, in the twentieth century, modal, equalistic, expanded-modal, and finally non-rhythmic-declamatory conceptions. The dominance of the “free-declamatory” theory in the last twenty-five or so years is not imaginable without the guiding aesthetic image of equalistic Gregorian chant; although this is rarely stated explicitly, one can frequently detect it between the lines as an a priori assumption. 1 Gesta romanorum, cap. 103 (widely current Medieval adage, after Chilon, Herodotus, Plutarch, etc.). 2 Facsimile: P. Meyer and G. Raynaud, Le chansonnier français de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris 1892; 1New York/London (Johnson) 1968. As trouvère manuscript it carries the siglum U, as troubadour manuscript the siglum X. 3 Fols. 4–91. 4 In what follows I will understand by “Minnesang” collectively the art of song of the troubadours, trouvères, and the German Minnesanger, including the lighter genres, to the extent that they are transmitted in the manuscripts. 2 Robert Lug [22] Fig. 1: Chansonnier de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, fol. 86r. [20] At present the arena of the Taktrhythmus battles is filled with exhausted arguments in a mist of paralytic aporia. For that reason it would not seem an especially promising maneuver at the present time to launch a frontal attack on the question of rhythm. Yet a flanking maneuver may perhaps offer the prospect of a breakthrough. The “Pre-Modal” Sign System of the Chansonnier Saint-Germain-des-Prés 3 Fig. 2: Troubadour chanson in four transcriptions (Peire d’Alvergne, PC 323.15; version of the manuscript R) [21] What I have in mind is a return to the question of the microrhythm (Feinrhythmik) within ligatures. In courtly song research this question has tended to be regarded as a secondary one. Sometimes it might come up in the attempt to accommodate excessive numbers of notes in a preconceived regular rhythmic scheme, but frequently – as in the case of the declamatory conception – it seemed possible to leave it out of consideration altogether. Taking the reverse route, in this situation, that is, giving priority to the question of microrhythm, seemed to promise new insights; after its resolution it might be possible to enter the problem area of the Taktrhythmik from a new constellation of evidence. In the first instance I did not seek bearings in Gregorian chant research. Since we cannot take as a priori accepted that there must have been connections between the written liturgical repertoire, on the one hand, and song notations as documents of a primarily oral culture, on the other, it seemed advisable to examine the area of courtly song in isolation. Further narrowing down led me to focus on a single manuscript, whose notation could be explored systematically and in detail. Surprises were not to be ruled out.5 * 5 “In the semiotics of musical notation, which would concern itself with the functional relationships between the sign systems and what they signify while taking into account the situation of the person(s) to whom they signify, virtually everything remains to be done” (L. Treitler, The Early History of Music Writing in the West, JAMS XXXV, 1982, p. 238). 4 Robert Lug The old part of the Chansonnier de Saint-Germain-des-Prés contains the melodies for 114 songs; a count of all the signs (= syllables provided with neumes) yields a total number of 8,476 notational signs. Of these, 59 % are single notes;6 the remaining 40.55 % (3,437 signs) are ligatures of two or more notes, beginning with clivis and pes, up to seven-note ligatures. There are no figures containing more than seven notes. [23] The more complex figures are exceedingly rare: altogether we find only five seven- note and eleven six-note ligatures. Five-note ligatures, of which there are only 59, can be regarded as exceptional as well. Taken together, the five-, six-, and seven-note ligatures make up less than 0.9 % of the total number of signs.7 Even the four-note ligatures, as a group, do not constitute a greater share than 2.03 %.8 The song melodies, then, consist of single notes and two- and three-note ligatures for a good 97 %. These statistical data may suggest the degree to which melodic formation in troubadour and trouvère songs is different from the Gregorian repertoire; a separate approach, therefore, seems required also because of the different nature of the available vocabulary of melodic figures.9 However, in the course of this discussion we will also encounter indications pointing to connections between these two repertories. For example, the constructive principles ruling the more complex signs, even the unica, are perfectly consistent. Besides, a detailed analysis does not yield any indication that the writing of the exceptional figures presented any kind of difficulty to the notators; on the contrary, the cursus of the script testifies throughout to ample experience. These facts would be inexplicable without some connection with ecclesiastical notational practice. But let us not preempt later conclusions. For those concerned with practical issues, the first question must be: do the ligatures signify “melismas,” that is, chains of notes of approximately equal weight and equal duration – or do they signify notes of different weight, possibly “ornamented single notes,” in which case we would have to distinguish between structural and ornamental notes? A systematic analysis of the sign repertory of the Chansonnier de Saint-Germain- des-Prés makes allows us to answer this question.10 6 Puncta: 58.78 % (4,982 signs); bipuncta: 0.07 % (6 signs); liquescent puncta and liquescent bipuncta: 0.6 % (51 signs: 6 upward liquescent and 15 downward liquescent puncta; 13 upward liquescent and 17 downward liquescent bipuncta). 7 75 signs = 0.88 %. 8 Including all those with bipuncta: 172 signs. 9 There are further conspicuous differences; one example may suffice: the pes occurs exclusively as a figure for stepwise progressions (with the exception of two third-leap pedes in a later addition). There is no trace of pedes involving the leap of a fourth or fifth, as is so common in plainchant. 10 The chain of reasoning that is reduced to its essentials here in sections I-IV can be found in a more richly documented exposition in my work Der Chansonnier de Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Paris, BN fr. 20050) – Edition seiner Melodien mit Analysen zur “vormodalen” Notation des 13. Jahrhunderts und einer Transkriptionsgeschichte des europäischen Minnesangs, 3 vols., Frankfurt am Main (Lang), 1995, in press. Of the altogether seven deductive stages, only the four that are codex-immanent will be sketched The “Pre-Modal” Sign System of the Chansonnier Saint-Germain-des-Prés 5 I A systematic classification of all the signs (Fig. 3), beginning with the punctum, and then proceeding with two-note figures all the way up to the most complex signs, may [25] serve as a basis from which to proceed. For the sake of visual clarity this table employs conventional transcription in neutral notation. Fig. 3: The repertory of figures used in the Chansonnier de Saint-Germain [24] here (the remaining three fall under the aspect of “traces of orality”: the tenor in Guido of Arezzo; brevis/longa and proprietas/perfectio in modal notation; recent song traditions in the British Isles). 6 Robert Lug Altogether we find – without graphic variants – 81 different note-figures when we take into account intervallic differences. If we ignore intervallic differences, then the sum total is 63. In this labyrinth a pattern seems to emerge. The list of neumes shows a notable peculiarity with regard to the “doubled notes” (bipuncta: Fig.
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